The Nazis

A 1939 article that concerned the rapid growth of the German Air Force, but also referred to the scandalous business dealings of American manufacturers Boeing and Douglas Aircraft had in this expansion.

"It has taken Field Marshall Hermann Wilhelm Goering a little over six years to build the German Air Armada, one of the world's most formidable offensive forces, out of a magnificent bluff."

The more I read about the Nazis, the more I sense that the term "truth is stranger than fiction" must have been conceived in order to describe them, and this article is a perfect case in point.

Published in 1942, this piece explained the Third Reich's need for a larger population if the Germans were to fulfill "their destiny" and spread throughout all Europe. However, by the early Forties German women were suspect of raising children for Hitler's war machine, despite the fact that the Nazis were going to great lengths to see to it that pregnancy was perceived as highly honorable. The regime sponsored programs titled "Strength Through Joy" and "Healthy Eroticism" in order to encourage more out-of-wedlock births among minors:

"The fruits of the Third Reich Population Policy are shocking indeed. Fifteen and 16-year-old girls are having babies with the blessings of their Hitler Youth leaders. Unwed mothers with illegitimate children have the right to evict married but childless couples from apartment houses...laws are passed entitling unmarried mothers to call themselves 'Mrs.' instead of 'Miss', and providing state subsides for illegitimate children and crushing taxes for childless adults." You can't make this stuff up!

Click here to read about the similarities and differences between communism and fascism.

The attached article tells the story of an organization that was formed by the German Foreign Office in order to steal the treasures of the occupied European nations. It was called the Nazi Art Corps and it was divided into four battalions of SS men; they stole manuscripts, sculpture, paintings, jewels etc, etc, etc. They answered to the Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893 – 1946).

This piece reported that the MANCHESTER GUARDIAN journalists who were posted to Nazi Germany were, without a doubt, the most reliable sources on all matters involving the violence committed by those brown shirted thugs during the earliest days of Hitler's reign:

"The 'BROWN TERROR' DOES NOT EXIST in Germany, according to the Hitler dictatorship."

"Even to talk about it is a penal offense. But the 'Brown Terror' goes on."

"Numbers hardly count in estimating the book-burning festival in Germany on May 10 [1933]....Reports range from an estimate of hundreds to tens of thousands of books burned."

American columnist Walter Lippmann of the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE wrote:

"They symbolize the moral and intellectual character of the Nazi regime. For these bonfires are not the work of schoolboys or mobs but of the present German Government acting through its Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment."

Shortly after Hitler had assumed power came the eyewitness accounts concerning all the assorted government sanctioned murders, public beatings, and confiscations that characterized the Third Reich.

This article appeared on the newsstands just three months after Hitler's coronation and is offers numerous repudiations, abnegation and disavowals all composed by the polished pros of the regime; such as Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, Reichsbank Chairman Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, newspaper editor Fritz Klein of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, and the editor from the Nazi organ in Munich, the Voelkischer Beobachter, who opined

"We hereby nail this shameless lie. The accusations remain unexampled in the history of any cultured nation."

Click here to read about the contempt that the Nazis had for Modern Art.

Click here to read about the similarities and differences between communism and fascism.